


Ashes and Embers

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Series, Royai - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25713505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I’ll have to ask you to close your eyes.” It was only now he realized she was scared—terrified, even—and trying in vain to conceal it.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	Ashes and Embers

“I’ll have to ask you to close your eyes.” It was only now he realized she was scared—terrified, even—and trying in vain to conceal it. He’d heard the same tone in the voices of his comrades at the academy plenty of times. It was just jarring to hear it from the girl—no, woman—he’d known for years to be strong and unflappable, at least on the exterior.

They were alone in the now-dismal study. A few of the books were gone—sold, or, knowing Riza, she’d hidden the more important ones away somewhere no one could find them. The tiny fireplace was dark, and didn’t seem to have been lit for quite some time. It was impeccably clean, as it always had been, and Roy found himself admiring Riza’s resolve to face the last pieces of her father without wavering.

“Oh—all right,” he said, confused and slightly hurt. Did she trust him at all to not tell anyone where the research papers were hidden? He’d been the only person she really trusted when he’d been Master Hawkeye’s apprentice. Had that changed? Of course it had changed. They’d both changed in the past few years, more than he wanted to admit. The golden light from the setting sun outside the window glinted off her hair as she turned her back on him. He’d seen dark circles under her eyes, her close-cropped blonde hair lank and dull. Somehow, it still didn’t detract from her beauty. She seemed made of stone now, impossible to really know at all. Just like the first time they’d met. He shut his eyes.

There was a faint rustling of—was that fabric? Curious, Roy almost opened his eyes, but then remembered her words and shut them tighter. If she really didn’t want him to see what she was doing, he wouldn’t defy her and betray the one last thread of trust they had left.

“You—you can look now,” she said, the first word coming out slightly choked before she got her voice under control. He slowly opened his eyes.

When he saw it, his heart stopped. Too many thoughts were racing through his head, making him feel nauseous and slightly faint. There wasn’t—this couldn’t be true. He was seeing a lie. There was no way Master Hawkeye would have done something like this.

She shifted slightly, and he noticed the faint ridges in the middle of her back denoting her spine. She was so thin, he noticed vaguely. Had she been eating at all since Master Hawkeye had died?

He stepped closer, almost on instinct. “Please,” she managed. He stopped. “Please don’t touch it.”  Please don’t come any closer. I’m too vulnerable right now.

The tattoo was almost beautiful, whorls of dark red ink going from just below the base of her neck all the way down to the small of her back. The two serpents and the sun he recognized as basic symbols of Alchemy, but the circle in the center of the array was new. He thought he’d caught flashes of circles similar to it sketched on the pages of Master Hawkeye’s notes before he’d whisked them out of sight, paranoid that his apprentice would learn his precious Flame Alchemy from a few pencil marks on a piece of paper.

But this was more than pencil and paper.

This was needles and skin.

Oh my god. I’m so sorry, Riza.

He fought to tamp down the surge of rage rising within him. Master Hawkeye had done this. Done this to his own daughter. The tattoo must have been unbearingly painful, and he doubted she’d given her father consent. What had he done to her? How dare he hurt her!

“You should probably copy it down somewhere,” she said, and he was surprised at how steady her voice was. “There’s a pencil and some paper over on the table to your right.” She jerked her head, and he realized she was clutching her blouse to her chest to preserve her modesty. She couldn’t move until he left. Ears burning slightly, he retrieved the pencil and paper and began to sketch the tattoo, hand shaking. Whether it was from rage, horror, or pain on her behalf, he didn’t know. 

“Can I come a little closer?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice level. She tensed, and he quickly realized. “I mean—I can’t see the writing and equations properly from here.”

She breathed out, and her shoulders relaxed slightly. “Yes. Yes, you can.” Still, please don’t touch me.

He stepped closer, peering at the words around the sigil, hating himself every second. I should say something. Not just copy down the sigil like a mindless student. She’s my friend, dammit. But he couldn’t think of anything to say, so he wordlessly sketched out the sigil. The text seemed to be written in Xerxian. He wasn’t fluent in it, but he was close, and he could borrow a bilingual dictionary from the library if he needed to—

He realized he was thinking of the sigil, and the person under the sigil, as a lab tool. No. No, no, no. She was his friend, and a living, breathing, person, younger than he was, her bare back rising and falling with every shallow breath she took. She was Riza Hawkeye, the girl who didn’t cry, the girl who fell asleep with an open book on her lap, the girl he’d fallen in love with when he was seventeen before he’d left her behind with a dying father and a dilapidated mansion. Not something to be studied, or used as an instrument, as he was doing.

He noticed that instead of standing tall like she usually did, Riza was hunched over, whether from shame or modesty he couldn’t be sure. He finally found his voice. “When did—when did he do it to you?” he was ashamed when his voice cracked. “Before I left?”

“Just after,” she said quietly. “He had a period of strength and lucidity, and I was beginning to hope that he would recover, but he kept rambling on about choices and honor and how I chose his legacy and—and then he told me that I was going to be the most valued resource in the alchemical world,” she said, voice barely louder than a whisper.

The surge of anger rose again—so that was what Riza had been to Master Hawkeye? A resource rather than a daughter? 

As if reading his thoughts, she quickly spoke up again. “It wasn’t his fault,” she said. “He really—he really was mad.” Her voice broke at having to say that about her own father. “I didn’t want to believe it, when the doctor warned me of the side effects the disease might have. And afterwards, he bandaged me and kept saying he was sorry, over and over again.” She was still blindly loyal to her father. His grip on her hadn’t loosened, even in death. 

“That doesn’t make it right,” Roy said, and, to his disgust, felt tears pricking in the corners of his eyes. If he hadn’t signed up for the military academy, if he’d stayed just a few more weeks, he could’ve protected her from the thing that overcame her father. He knew he could’ve, and loathed himself all the more for being so selfish and not even thinking about her at all while she was in pain. He blinked, and the tears were gone. “I’m so goddamned sorry, Riza.”

“Don’t be,” she murmured. “It’s not your fault.” He thought he saw a tear, illuminated by the light from the window, roll down her face and fall to the floor. But with her back to him, he couldn’t be sure. She took a shaky breath. “He chose me to carry the secrets of flame alchemy, wanted me to choose his successor. And you’re the only person I trust that’s still alive.” A second diamond-bright tear fell. “But can you copy it down quickly, please? It—I’m just cold is all.”

Only Riza Hawkeye could treat something like this so casually. He’d known of Master Hawkeye’s growing madness. Both of them had—the doctor had told Riza the day of her father’s diagnosis, and she’d told Roy as soon as he’d left. She’d refused to believe it at the time, but they couldn’t ignore the days he’d spent locked up in his study, without food or sleep, like his research was the only thing that mattered. They’d seen him during his manic episodes, where he’d once tried to hit Riza, pupils shrunken and panting heavily. Roy had grabbed his arms and wrenched them behind his back before he could do anything, but still, it had been terrifying. Riza hadn’t even flinched, prepared to take the hit, brown eyes wide and scared.

And yet she had still refused to believe her father was really and truly mad, up until…

Until.

He reached out a hand to comfort her, then immediately drew it back, remembering her nonverbal requests. Besides, she was half-naked, and had seemingly grown to trust him less and less. What would she do? And besides, he didn’t think he could have said anything to alleviate the pain.

I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry, Riza.


End file.
